Recent content by JohnElliott

Last year I was riding from Bexhill to Eastbourne and decided en route to extend my journey to Lewes, so I bought an Eastbourne-Lewes return online. I very much appreciated not having to get out at Eastbourne, go through the barriers, and get back on the same train.

Reinstating East Grinstead - Three Bridges would not be easy or cheap; the trackbed has been built on at Crawley Down and this would need either a lot of compulsory purchase or a bypass, perhaps in tunnel. Once you did reach East Grinstead the junction to the low level station faced the wrong...

My recollection is that the boards on the platform show a diagram of the train as "ABCDE" or "BCD" depending if it's 12FLU or 8RLU.

I've been amusing myself getting AI to draw Sailor Moon characters playing ZX Spectrum games. Thought I'd try them on Southern Belle. (Believe it or not, this was one of its better attempts. Some of the others had the locomotive approaching Clayton Tunnel sideways...)

To dive further into fantasy, if the original curve from Barbican in the direction of Blackfriars could be reinstated (which I think would require the demolition of the Grade II listed Smithfield poultry market) that would allow trains from the south to be terminated in the event of disruption...

Interesting that the document sees fit to mention 6-tracking East Croydon to South Croydon and additional 4-tracking south of Three Bridges as potential improvements at some point in the future. Widening the South Croydon cutting without shutting the railway down completely for the duration...

I despatched from that platform on the Bluebell in my younger days. The process was to give the right away from the station side first (outside of the curve), then the island platform (inside of the curve). The porter on the station side had the option of locking the door from the booking hall...

3DDT, perhaps. This one, I was trying to generate the Southern-liveried 319 (always thought they should have painted one of them in SR 'sunshine' malachite before they were sent away up North). But the station background is... special. Yes, two lines crossed at East Grinstead, but not on the...

Now and again we get threads asking "What if the nationalised railway specified a universal type of rolling stock to be rolled out across all routes"? Here's Nano Banana 2's take on OVS Bulleid's unique vision for this brief.

When the SR electrified to Eastbourne in the 1930s some sections had to be relaid because they had steel sleepers.

I have a recollection that when this was discussed before, someone (quoting Chris Green?) said that once the figures had been run and it had proved to be cheaper to electrify to East Grinstead than remove asbestos from the DEMUs on that route, that in hindsight it would have been cheaper to do...

Jumping across from the 'what if the Bakerloo had taken over Crystal Palace high level?' discussion.

I recall reading that before Crystal Palace High Level closed, the speculative idea of the day was that the Bakerloo line should be extended to Nunhead Junction and take the branch over.

I remember seeing that suggested in a railway magazine around 2013, not for safety reasons but to lessen the impact of snow and ice.

If (as seems likely) the next generation of rolling stock is fitted with traction batteries as standard, then rather than having changeover points with complicated electrical arrangements it would be possible to have nonelectrified gaps between the two systems, or in locations where expensive...